Nearly 180 Atlanta Public Schools educators who have been implicated in a state standardized test cheating scandal will soon have to answer to an ethics board and face punishments that, for some, could include dismissal.
Officials with the Georgia Professional Standards Commission said this week that altering scores on standardized tests is viewed as a serious violation, but is becoming more common as the pressure to improve student performance causes some teachers and principals to act inappropriately.
The commission has investigated 200 cases in the past three years involving testing breaches ranging from educators losing booklets to changing answers on exams. Educators accused of such violations could face anything from six-month suspensions of their teaching credentials to revocation, depending on the severity of the infraction.
A special investigation of 2009 test scores in Atlanta Public Schools, launched by the governor's office, found evidence of cheating at 44 campuses, involving 178 teachers and principals, according to a report released this week. Officials at the commission's Educator Ethics Division said they expect to receive formal complaints on those mentioned in the report. The probe led to 82 confessions. Educators admitted to erasing test scores and going to great lengths -- including lying, intimidating and, in one case, using a lighter to reseal the plastic on compromised booklets -- to cover-up their impropriety.
Those statements will be shared with the ethics division. The cooperation of those teachers could save the state up to 20 hours of leg work on each investigation, said Gary Walker, director of the Educator Ethics Division.
“The special investigators are very appreciative of the assistance that was provided (by some teachers), and they have already said that they would like for us to give that some consideration in the sanction process,” Walker said.
His staff will advise the commission about the teachers who cooperated. “They are understanding; they are teachers, too," he said . "They know what it’s like to be under pressure.”
Walker said APS cases with confessions are likely to be heard in September because of the commission's August break. The entire caseload could be completed as early as December, he said.
The Code of Ethics for Educators forbids “falsifying, misrepresenting or omitting or erroneously reporting information submitted in the course of an official inquiry/investigation; information submitted to federal, state, local school districts and other governmental agencies; and information regarding the evaluation of students ...” like those taking the Georgia Criterion Referenced-Competency Test.
On Thursday, the commission, which hears about 1,000 cases annually, will consider 20 stemming from complaints of 2009 CRCT breaches. Ethics investigators, who have a backlog of cases, have 60 days to look into a complaint. A typical investigation can take between 20 to 40 hours to complete. Sometimes extensions are granted. The ethics office has 13 employees.
John Grant, chief investigator for the division, said test breaches usually can be difficult to prove if the only evidence found is erasures. “We have investigated allegations all over the state of the erasure analysis that shows a suspicious number of wrong to right changes. Is that alone enough to sanction an educators certificate? Generally, no. We need something else to push it over the line for the Professional Standards Commission to sanction an educator."
Grant would not discuss pending investigations, but said in similar cases involving erasures on a 2008 CRCT summer retest, the penalties were stiff. According to state documents, former DeKalb Schools principal James Berry was suspended for two years for changing answers on the state exam. Assistant principal Doretha Alexander received a one-year suspension.
Alexander told investigators the principal "pulled a pencil from a cup on my desk and said, ‘I want you to call the answers to me.’ He then began to erase answers. I really didn’t pay much attention to the amount of erasing that he was doing. I think there was a total of about 32 tests administered. He told me that he needed for 26 students to pass for us to make AYP (Adequate Yearly Progress goals for student performance on the CRCT). I estimate that we stayed in my office for about two hours ... We never spoke of the matter again.”
Those found guilty of violating the Code of Ethics for Educators can appeal their cases. The appeals process would then take the matter before an administrative law judge and up the chain to the state Supreme Court if the educator continued to pursue the matter.
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